Special Episode: Postcards from ASU GSV (Part 1)

In this special episode, Edtech Insiders hits the road and travels to San Diego for the ASU GSV conference, the biggest and most influential Edtech conferences in the US.

Rather than a single interview, this episode contains no less than EIGHT short 'hallway' interviews with all variety of amazing Edtech and education founders and influencers. 

This episode focuses on innovators in the PK12 space; part two will focus on Higher Ed and workforce innovators.

1. John King Jr., former Secretary of Education for the US under President Obama and candidate for Governor of Maryland
2. Sara Mauskopf, the CEO of Winnie, a daycare and preschool marketplace with millions of users
3. Aditya Kaddu, Founder and CEO of Edstruments, a leading school budget planning platform
4. Gavin Cooney, CEO of Learnosity, a leading assessment platform
5. Maria Berrera, CEO and Founder of Clayful, a text based coaching platform for SEL
6. Vishal Goenka, Founder and CEO of 2Sigma School, which offers accredited CS courses for high school students.
7. Yair Shapira, Founder and CEO of the Amplio Special Education Learning Platform
8. Yaki Dayan, the Founder and CEO of Edtech Israel and Neurotech Solutions

Transcript

Ben Kornell: 0:04

Hello, everyone, it's Ben Cornell and Alex from edtech insiders. We're here at ASU GSB. And we have a special episode coming to you this time. We're calling it postcards from ASU GSB. Five minute to 10 minute vignettes of our conversations and explorations with leaders everywhere from early startup to scaled unicorn. We're talking to the folks at ASU and bringing it to you, our audience. One of the great things about ASU GSV post pandemic is that there's an incredible energy in the space around what's possible, but also a collective energy about coming together again, as a community. And so we invite all of you to share the links, download some of our other episodes, because the community of edtech is growing and strong. We're so excited to have you join us today. Hi, everyone, Ben and Alex here from ASU GSB. And we're super thrilled, excited humbled to welcome John King, Jr, candidate for governor of state of Maryland, but also former secretary of education. So great to have you here, John, excited to be here. So here at ASU, it's really about the present and future of education and edtech. And we like to start by looking at the past. So starting under the Obama administration, when you were Secretary of Education, through the Trump era, and today, it's really changed a lot and many of us in education space are trying to understand how do we navigate these new policy priorities? How do you see that evolution? How would you characterize that?

John King Jr.: 1:40

Well, I'm certainly relieved that the Biden administration has put the focus back on investing in public education and addressing issues of equity, which were a priority for us in the Obama administration. You know, today, a majority of the kids in our nation's public schools are kids of color, majority of kids in the nation's public schools participate in their free and reduced price lunch program. So our future depends on doing a better job educating low income students and students of color. So equity has to be at the center of how we move forward. It's also true in higher education, we've expanded access to higher ed over generations. But sadly, there are still huge completion rate gaps for first generation students, for students from low income backgrounds for students of color, we've got to close those if we want to be maximally competitive in the 21st century economy. In your

Ben Kornell: 2:33

era, there was real focus on innovation and experimentation and scale. Obviously, with the pandemic, there's been a real focus on recovery. What do you see as the net impact of that on our space in general, and especially on kids for this opportunity? Yeah.

John King Jr.: 2:49

Well, you know, in the Obama administration, one of our priority programs was the investing in innovation grant program, I three, which was really about investing in innovative initiatives and building an evidence base around what works so that folks can see that something is working and take it to scale. And that had bipartisan support at the time, then we went through their Trump years, there was much less bipartisan support for science, for evidence. And that's unfortunate, but I'm hopeful that we're seeing some new opportunities. I think, certainly, the COVID period has been incredibly challenging for kids, for families, for educators. But there were ways that we use technology that were new, and that we could learn from and that hopefully will help us build a stronger education sector going forward. We also did a lot of work in response to COVID to address the long standing Digital Divide challenge. And now we've got a lot more kids and families who have reliable internet access, that opens up some possibilities for real innovation that just weren't there because of the digital divide.

Alexander Sarlin: 3:55

So one of the major priorities throughout your career is teacher training, and especially teachers of color. The US has a long legacy of unequal educational opportunities. And teachers right now have been thrust into this technical environment because of the pandemic that they've never dealt with before. I'm curious how you see technology and teacher training coming together at this unprecedented moment. Yeah, I

John King Jr.: 4:18

think there are two opportunities. One is to rethink teacher preparation and teacher professional development to support effective use of technology tools, and some programs have done that. But a lot happened and certainly went COVID hand and so many schools move to virtual or blended learning. That was a huge transition for teachers and overwhelming. And folks had challenges kind of sorting through all the available options for materials, figuring out how to use platforms like zoom effectively with their with their students. So there's kind of a reimagining of the existing infrastructure. And then there's the opportunity to leverage technology as a tool for the preparation. And as you start to think about what virtual reality might make possible to create training experiences, we're already seeing that in healthcare. I think over time, we'll see that in education as well. Also the use of video and video of classroom practice and using that to help teachers reflect on their own practice and learn from master teachers, that again, there are some programs that are dabbling in that. But now we have some opportunities to take that to scale.

Ben Kornell: 5:30

It's just so exciting and refreshing to hear your clarity on all of this. I'm a school board member in my local community. And it used to be education was the one area of politics where we could all agree, at least on the core fundamentals of every child deserves a great education. But now that has become a battleground of school boards and education in general. How's that playing out politically, as you run for governor in the state of Maryland? And how do you see the politics of education evolving, going forward?

John King Jr.: 6:02

And there's no question and there are folks who are trying to make education a tool for dividing us. You know, I think it's really important for people who care about public education, to remind the public about how foundational it is to the health of our economy and our democracy. And we also have to push back on some of these attacks on teaching the truth of our history. You know, I live in Silver Spring, Maryland, about 25 miles from where my great grandfather was enslaved the cabin that he lived in with his family, as enslaved people still standing on the property. That's real that happened, we have to tell that truth. It is also true that my family went in three generations from enslaved in that cabin, to serving in the cabinet of the first black president, that progress is also an important part of our history that we have to share with students. And so when people are trying to discourage teachers, or intimidate teachers from teaching about the truth of slavery, and segregation, or the truth of the Holocaust, or the truth of Japanese American internment, I think it's important for all of us to push back and then say, no, no, our kids and our in our communities are strong enough to grapple with where we fallen short of the promise of democracy and equality and the progress that we've made.

Alexander Sarlin: 7:18

So one really fascinating project from the Education Trust is a toolkit to support college opportunities for justice impacted students. That's a fascinating idea. And I'd love to hear a little bit about the origin of that focus and what role educational technology may play in that initiative. Yeah,

John King Jr.: 7:35

it's really in many ways, an extension of work that I was doing in the Obama administration, where we created a pilot program to allow students who are incarcerated to use Pell grants for higher education. And it really goes to the history of criminal justice in our country. In 94, when the crime bill passed, Congress made a terrible decision to ban access to Pell grants from incarcerated students. So programs, college programs in prisons all over the country closed overnight, a few stayed open with philanthropy, but many, many programs closed, I talked to one woman who was incarcerated the time, she said the guards came into the books at the library and said, you won't need these anymore. And it was just reflected a spirit of punishment and tough on crime that actually doesn't make public policy sense. 95% of people who are incarcerated are coming home, everyone's better off, they're better off their families are better off communities are better off if they have educational opportunities. We wanted Congress to change the law to restore access to Pell Grants. But, you know, Republican Congress wasn't possible. So we use our authority under the Higher Education Act to create a pilot project allowing 65 colleges and universities to use Pell grants for students who are incarcerated. And then when I left the administration at trust and other civil rights organizations, as well as criminal justice reform organizations, brought members of Congress governor's to visit those programs. And when you hear from the students how transformative it is for them, you can't help but walk away, compelled. And so in December of 20, finally, the law was change and access to Pell grants is now being restored for incarcerated students. And what we realized as we spent time working with students who began their higher education while incarcerated, was that they're all these other obstacles when folks come home, collateral consequences where because they have that conviction, it gets in the way of them continuing their education, accessing sometimes state assistance, financial assistance for their education accessing certain jobs. And so we brought together a justice fellowship, folks who are formerly incarcerated and began their higher education while incarcerated. And there are a group of scholars who are now working with us at EDD trust, to get states to change their policies or laws around collateral consequences so that returning citizens have the opportunity to fully participate in In our economy and our democracy.

Ben Kornell: 10:01

So we're here at ASU GSV, which is conference, as I mentioned, celebrating the future of education, what gets you most excited? And what are you most worried about? Hmm,

John King Jr.: 10:12

I'll start with the word most worried about is that, you know, despite several decades of investment in education and technology, we haven't moved the needle far enough or fast enough on closing equity gaps in K 12, or higher ed. And so I think that a tech sector really needs to reflect on how can innovation and equity merge to produce a more just and equitable future. So that's the worry, and we just haven't made the progress that we would all want. The thing that makes me hopeful is even as hard as these last couple of years have been, there are these pockets of excellence shoots of green places where people are doing really interesting things, leveraging technology to strengthen core instruction, leveraging technology to create opportunities for acceleration for students, where a student might not be able to take AP Physics at their own school, but now they're able to, because of blended learning, we should never again tell high school student you can't take that class, because it's not offered in this building. Right? That's something that's now possible. There are programs that are exposing students areas in science and social studies in the arts, where they're able to see and experience things that through technology that wouldn't otherwise be possible, you know, just reading about the ancient pyramids, you're actually walking through the ancient pyramids, that's really cool and hopeful about the future of education. We just have to make sure that the tech sector focuses on the outcomes. Are we moving student learning outcomes? Are we moving the students socio emotional well being outcomes? And are we addressing equity issues?

Alexander Sarlin: 11:51

I think we're at a time that is fascinating, fascinating conversation with John King. We really appreciate your time today. It's been amazing.

Ben Kornell: 11:58

Thanks so much for the conference. Good luck in the primary. Thankyou. Yeah. Hi, everyone. It'sbeen Cornell and I'm here with Alex for edtech insiders at ASU GSB. And we're excited to be joined by Sarah from Winnie. Welcome.

Sara Mauskopf: 12:12

Thank you for having me.

Ben Kornell: 12:13

Awesome. Well, we're excited to have five good minutes. Our first question is, what do you do?

Sara Mauskopf: 12:18

So I am Sarah Mostafa, I'm the CEO and co founder Winnie. Winnie is a childcare marketplace. So we specialize in helping parents find daycare and preschool, but also other forms of care and education for their kids. And I have been at this for six and a half years now.

Ben Kornell: 12:34

That's incredible. A lot of focus on early childhood and childcare deserts. How does it work? How does your matching system work?

Sara Mauskopf: 12:42

Yeah, so you can leave with a like a directory of all the licensed daycares and preschools that exist in the United States. So when we kind of decided to start with a it was really because we went to Google and we typed daycare near me. And the results were few and far between. And as we were digging into the problem, we found that over half of licensed daycares and preschools had no internet presence, no website, not even a Google listing or Yelp page. And so that was really the first step was just getting all the information in one place. But now increasingly, all that information is really filled out by the providers, the daycares and preschools themselves who come on our platform and, you know, fill out all the details, like their prices, and whether they have open spaces and all the good stuff that parents want to know.

Ben Kornell: 13:31

So what is the pandemic been like for your business, and also for the childcare providers that you support and families as a parent of a five year old and 10 year old, it's been crazy on the parent side, for sure.

Sara Mauskopf: 13:43

It has been a journey. So it really hurt the industry. Initially, demand sort of fell off a cliff in the very beginning, parents were unsure about sending their kids to childcare or they were working from home. So they tried to do it all at home. But very quickly, like we're talking months, I think everyone sort of realized that childcare was essential. The businesses all came back online, they didn't close down like the schools, they really had to operate both to make money and to serve families, you know, for our youngest learners need to be in person. And so to me, that was like amazing, and showed just how important the work we're doing is how important the childcare industry is. It's truly essential. It's one of the very few things that had to remain operating.

Alexander Sarlin: 14:30

Yeah, I think one of the big realizations of the pandemic was that schools aren't just there for education, they also serve childcare they do free lunch programs is all of these days socialization. I'd love to hear a little bit more about the how it sprung back so fast and what parents what you heard from the field about why parents were so quick to want to get children back into childcare even when things were unsure.

Sara Mauskopf: 14:53

Yeah, I mean, they they couldn't work. So that was I think the primary thing but then I think over time, there was also recommend Shouldn't that children, especially our youngest learners learn best in an environment that is play based with other children and humans in general. And there's now just now finally, studies coming out showing that there are some deficits for, you know, these so called pandemic babies, of which I have one, because they didn't get that same interaction that's so essential in the earlier. So I'm really optimistic because I think the pandemic showed that childcare is not just for parents, it's also early education for our children. And it's, it's essential in both ways.

Alexander Sarlin: 15:35

I have a theory, there's going to be a microgeneration of these children who are of a certain age during the pandemic, and they have different characteristics, as adults float see in 20 years. But exactly. So what are you most excited about at the conference? What's sort of been really thrilling about being here?

Sara Mauskopf: 15:53

Well, it's really thrilling that early education is like a category now at this conference, and that there's like multiple panels on it. And all these companies and speakers, when I started winning, and kind of got into the field, six and a half years ago, like there was a lot less innovation going on. So I think that has been the most exciting.

Ben Kornell: 16:14

What about challenges what's either for Winnie or for the space? In general? What are the biggest challenges,

Sara Mauskopf: 16:20

one of the biggest challenges facing the childcare industry is staffing, the workforce has really been decimated, and we have to fix that to have enough capacity for kids, then the number one reason we don't have spaces is because there's not enough qualified staff. And so we have to get more money into the industry. So we can pay these physicians what they deserve to be paid and attract the best people to the field.

Alexander Sarlin: 16:47

We've heard people as the number one challenge a few different times today in different contexts. And it's so interesting coming out of this pandemic, we're all alone in our houses and realizing that how much we all depend on one another. And, and how, you know, the big challenge to industries that are very different is finding great people or connecting with people.

Sara Mauskopf: 17:08

Yes, yes, people. Turns out, we can't just all exist in the metaverse have to be in real life. Some of the time.

Ben Kornell: 17:16

Yeah. It's so funny, because we've also had Metaverse,

Alexander Sarlin: 17:20

people, because they say that people are the biggest challenge

Ben Kornell: 17:24

to close this out on this one, you know, looking forward five years, 10 years, what's your aspirational vision for what early childhood could look like?

Sara Mauskopf: 17:32

Yeah, so our mission at Winnie is make it a lot easier for parents to find, afford, and ultimately purchase really high quality care that enriches their children's lives. And so we have a long way to go to get there. But we're definitely making huge strides along that path. But we won't stop until every family in the United States can access really high quality childcare,

Alexander Sarlin: 17:58

and child care workers are paid fair wages as well.

Sara Mauskopf: 18:01

Yeah, that is a requirement for every family to be able to access it for sure.

Ben Kornell: 18:05

Super. Thanks so much, Sarah. Check out winning. Is it winning.com It is awesome. And you can follow us on the tech insiders podcast.

Sara Mauskopf: 18:14

Thank you. Thank you.

Ben Kornell: 18:16

Hello, it's been Cornell from ASU GSB. I'm here today with Aditya so excited to have you at DTI to learn more about instruments and also your vision for transformational change in education. We have three questions for a good five minutes segment. Question one, what do you do? Yeah,

Aditya Kaddu: 18:33

thanks, Ben, appreciate the opportunity to be here and share about the work of instruments. So instruments is a software platform that is used in schools around the country to help them better manage financial resources. So when we think about all the money that's going into education, especially right now, with federal funding, and and all the extra money that's there, how is that money being deployed, and who has a voice and how that money is being deployed? In a lot of school districts across America, those decisions are made only in central offices are primarily in central offices. But we all know that principals, teachers, those who are closer to students are going to have a better perspective on what the students need to succeed. So our software helps people who don't have financial backgrounds, you know, aren't the spreadsheet Wizards of the world really engage with their money in a way that allows them to make more real time effective transparent decisions with

Ben Kornell: 19:21

US dollars to better serve their students. And so important now that we see this influx of federal state and local dollars, and the kind of blooming needs in the education system? Can you tell us about a key study or school or district that you've been working with? Where you really made an impact or big change?

Aditya Kaddu: 19:41

Yeah, sure. A couple come to mind, but I'll just name one over in Massachusetts. We're working in the Boston area with KIPP Massachusetts school, so they've only got about four campuses. But over there, one of the big things we've heard from finance team is that we've gone from 20 Plus spreadsheets that we're managing and tracking In all of this different financial information and budgets on, so only three, because instruments is automated a lot of the work that they were doing, which is extracting information, rejiggering it into spreadsheets and sending it out now that we've do that automatically and in a way that leaders can engage with it, the finance team is spending their time more strategically as thought partner is sitting alongside school leaders and helping them think through, you know, what can you use this money for to best serve your students, instead of spending time on the manual work of spreadsheet work?

Alexander Sarlin: 20:31

So I hear your vision, and it almost reminds me of like QuickBooks, but specific to the education sector, is that completely off? Or is that view see that kind of metaphor of being able to take complex finances and make it accessible to people who may not want to work with many, many, many spreadsheets?

Aditya Kaddu: 20:48

You know, I recently, QuickBooks as a an Intuit product, and another intrapreneur, that comes to mind is meant, yes, use that for your own personal budgeting, I think of us as sort of a mint on steroids for the school world mint plus Tableau, you know, this is the power of data analytics in a form that anyone can engage with and access so that at the end of the day, the choices that they're making with those dollars are more informed, and ultimately better for students.

Alexander Sarlin: 21:16

That's a much more modern reference. I like that Mint is a great tool.

Ben Kornell: 21:21

Yeah, so what you're here at ASU, GSB, you're seeing a lot of what's out there, both today and the future, what's getting you most excited? You know, for us, I

Aditya Kaddu: 21:32

think what's really exciting is just the fact that this is even happening, I mean, think of what the last two years have looked like, this is my first big in person event to be out. And that's also being reflected at the school level. We were meeting school leaders who are here, district leaders who are here who are seeing, you know, we're finally coming out of this COVID Chaos, Cyclone, hopefully, right? We know there's other variants coming. But we're coming out of this chaos. And we're thinking more strategically about what's coming ahead. And we're not just in firefighting mode anymore. But we're really investing in what's the future of our schools? How do we help kids learn and succeed? And also, how do we make up for what's happened in these last couple of years, as we all know, the impacts that that's been having on students, especially disproportionately students, who come from low income and minority households in this country. So I'm excited to see the conversation shifting from how do we fight COVID fires to how do we really step into this new chapter with all the new innovations that have been developed? Over the last couple years?

Ben Kornell: 22:38

You kind of answered the question of life loss, or what's the biggest challenge? Maybe four instruments as an ed tech entrepreneur going from startup to scaling? What's been the biggest challenge? Like what are you tackling today?

Aditya Kaddu: 22:50

Yeah, you know, the big one that comes to mind is helping folks think about finances and important lever for change, right? Like, when when I look around at ASU GSB, and everyone is here, the vast majority of innovators, they're creating solutions that are used by teachers and students day in day out in the classroom. And that's great. We need those tools out there. And we need those entrepreneurs, that very few people are trying to innovate the role of principals of central office leaders, and have trying to build solutions that serve them well. And so we're one of the few players in that category. And I think often districts struggle with this idea of can we make investments in our central office and our central team because a lot of folks look at that from the outside of a district's budget sheet and say we how can we cut spending on Central Services and put more spending into classrooms and teachers and so sometimes we have to really make the case for how what we're building is actually going to save money. It could save people hours and ultimately help repurpose dollars into the classroom in the way that they really want to put there's an investment that's to be made up front.

Ben Kornell: 24:04

Well, Aditya, it's so great to have you here. For those who are listening it's instruments. Also Aditya is a great whiskey connoisseur at our tech insiders, happy hour last fall, he actually did a whiskey tastings for us. So it's important that in this really important, but challenging work in edtech that we also have fun. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Aditya Kaddu: 24:27

Thank you, Ben. And thank you, Alex, appreciate you bringing up Hi, everyone. It's Ben Analects. With

Ben Kornell: 24:32

ed tech insiders here at ASU GSB. And we're Gavin today from learnosity. Welcome to the show.

Gavin Cooney: 24:38

Thanks for having us.

Ben Kornell: 24:39

Well, we've got five good minutes. The first question is what do you do?

Gavin Cooney: 24:44

So I'm the co founder and CEO of learnosity. We provide an API to a level that people build out assessment products. And it's you know, we've reached scale we've got 40 million users last year. We live at 17 Point 3 billion questions, and we will be back of two 2 billion items belong to various publishers and customers. So you know, we've we've done pretty well. And we're really proud to make that the impact we're making in

Ben Kornell: 25:08

the EdTech space. It's so rare that Alex and I have someone on the show that we're both a fan of, and each of us in multiple companies have been a customer. So in fact, even switching from other products to your product, and why do you think you've managed to attract this kind of momentum behind learnosity? Product? What's the kind of secret sauce? Well, that would be a secret, of course.

Gavin Cooney: 25:34

But you know, we kind of created this basically, like we were coming in to 10 years ago. So when we started doing this, I was commuting, educating companies about what APO was, right, that's coming up, come on, this is an API, this is how we use it. Now, it's kind of bit more second nature to developers, and to CTOs, and so on, they know what these are the US and elsewhere for payment processing, or whatever else. So it was kind of always a difficult start to be kind of trying to educate it a whole sector and create a space, or we're in a kind of first off block, there's really nobody else out there. And we've managed to just kind of it's a really kind of space age business, I always say it's sort of my mom's that doesn't understand what we're talking about SAS. So for example, service API's and so on, what really is kind of old fashioned, we kind of tried to deliver a bunch of value gives you kind of five or $10 value back, and just try and deliver that and not try and take the magic of anyone who said values and so on. And generally mission language, a lot of people I noticed some short, you guys are saying, we are doing this because we wanted to kind of change education and wants to improve things. And we were kind of offended by that, that ed tech that was out there. And by the education stuff, we want to make our difference with a certain set of skills. And we wanted to use those to, to make that difference. And every time we go, we speak to an education company or a publisher, that's generally somebody we're speaking to really, they're working in that space for that reason, they want to make a difference as well. And it's kind of a kinship. And because of that mission, it's great to kind of find someone who really embodies what will that kind of value, that kind of mission. And, you know, it kind of goes from there.

Alexander Sarlin: 27:06

Yeah, I have been that internal ambassador and a couple of places as well. And I think one thing that is really interesting about learnosity is model is that, you know, so many tech companies don't realize they need a robust assessment platform until they sort of are already until they do until they're already sort of out and scaling and one of and then they ended up having to build, you know, multiple choice questions, and then sticking with that one question type forever. And any of us who have been in education for any amount of time realize that multiple choice is very limited. Tell us a little bit about the learnosity Suite of Assessments, because it really is quite impressive.

Gavin Cooney: 27:40

Yeah, I mean, I mean, back to multiple choice, I mean, the thing about that is, is we're kind of concentrating on a monster bleed generic, that nobody wants to kind of build again, a lot of people are in education, that'd be better in education have built multiple assessment engines before they've done this. And the last thing they want to do is build their like, fourth or fifth,

Alexander Sarlin: 28:01

right definition of their career.

Gavin Cooney: 28:03

And we're able to come along and do that. But to your question, we have about 60 different question types. And, you know, last year over the 17 or so billion questions that we've delivered, there was 10 billion, we're not multiple choice, right? We've kind of tried to move the whole industry away from multiple choice a ton of them. But we delivered, you know, a billion and a half math questions or our score? Yes, we've kind of learned drag and drop a lot of audio, a lot of video. And what it does is it puts the tools in the hands allow them people who are building learning products, to let me do kind of real assessment and not be limited by by something not be limited by multiple choice of something to be able to do more more authentic assessments, and replicate what could only be done, one to one. But you know, yeah, like lots of things. We don't want one, when you add in scale. That's

Alexander Sarlin: 28:51

absolutely, and I have nothing against multiple choice. It can be a very powerful formative assessment model. But learnosity also offers an enormous suite of customizations, even within a question like multiple choice, there's many, many different ways to deliver it. There are skins there are different back end scoring, or no, really, I've pitched it internally to multiple companies. And I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about how you build a system that is robust enough that people can sort of use it exactly how they want.

Gavin Cooney: 29:22

Yeah, I mean, I always talk about it being like a Mary Poppins handbag of functionality that just sort of deceptively complex, right. And there's something different about building an API, you can just change it, you can just say turn on and run on one day, and your assessment is in blue, you see red, that's the Capital One. This was kind of a way of versioning these things. But the fundamental thing here is that we're not restrictive about what people can build, they can add on to it, they can customize it, they can do that kind of stuff. And we're not in any way prescriptive for what they should build. We don't have any opinion on what you should build. People aren't building large scale summative assessments. I think we delivered a biggest summative assessment in the world. 580,000 students You can easily Wow 9am, three to one start. And then like tons of formula of homework, young students, doctors and nurses, like lots of different things. When you do something when you start from that, that point of view, where it shouldn't be restrictive, and we don't have any opinion on what you should build. And it just needs to be like that it needs it needs to have that functionality. And you built something kind of a low low enough level type of Lego bricks. Yes. You build those Lego bricks, fundamentally small enough. It doesn't really matter. The Lego analogy you can build that Barbie house sort of Hogwarts Castle? Batmobile, it's just it's

Alexander Sarlin: 30:39

just leg up. Yeah. And that ethos, I think really appeals to developers who like to think about abstraction in that way.

Ben Kornell: 30:45

So one of the themes at that the conference is really around a global community. Four or five years ago, ASU GSB was largely us. Little bit of China, which, ironically, I find, like, no presence of China here, big Indian presence, but also Europe is really showing up big. You are one of the pioneering ad tech European companies, like what's your reflection both on the past but also going forward in the future? How are you seeing the role of European edtech companies in the broader space,

Gavin Cooney: 31:19

you know, immigrants who get the job. We're like, I always say the entrepreneur was famously easy. So we decided to make it hard for an Irish company, we've historically been headquartered in Australia. And then we discovered pretty quickly that the US was the market. You know, I grew up watching American TV, and I'm kind of always taught, if you can make a day, you can make it anywhere with an apartment in Brooklyn and spent a couple of years pounding the pavements. And, you know, it's one market, one language, one conference that go to all those types of things. And the scale here is bigger than that's where only now are we kind of, even as an Irish company, only now are we focusing on your brain, right? Or the US are explicit focuses us for the for the longest time, you know, it's great to do that, and you have the little bit of Irish charm to try and make.

Alexander Sarlin: 32:08

And I imagine that with the growth of other European edtech companies, they're probably you're getting a lot more incoming calls and clients in that space.

Gavin Cooney: 32:17

The problem is that we don't have that kind of brand that teachers and students you know, it's very deliberate choice. But you know, we're not very well known company, even though we have such far reaching for our reach. So, you know, the most frustrating thing we have is like all wherever you six months ago, we were right to this, right? Because of just because it is a b2b brand is kind of quite niche. And the audience is basically the people who got it. Yes, you do. So this has been a pretty busy week for me. Yeah. Well,

Ben Kornell: 32:41

we so appreciate your time with us. Last question to take us out. What are you most excited about? And what's your biggest challenge?

Gavin Cooney: 32:47

So this seems to be I'm really excited that scene, Ed Tech is finally getting the investment leads the excitement needs. And I think that's going to trickle down to metal believe in trickle down economics, the trickle down investment that is standing here. Ultimately, we're all here to make better educational outcomes, better lives for students and teachers. I think that is not true for them. And it really does excite me. There's more focus, more investment, and so on. There's more of a focus on accessibility, which is really, really important. And it's becoming this kind of commercial imperative. It's always been a moral imperative. But it has become this commercial imperative, which is really great to see. And ultimately, this leads to a better standard of products, which is often what I strive to do all about. Yep. And in our area, biggest challenge, I think probably the same answer as everybody's given its people right now to actually be possible to hire developers and keep on developers and and everyone else. And there's this kind of like, Moore's law has been around for a long time, everything's cheaper and faster, and so on. The one thing in technology is not getting cheaper and faster is developing, in a way, and it's very, very difficult to run a business in that way. But also, in a way, it's kind of an advantage for us. Because if you're a, if you're running a learning project for a publisher, or whatever it is, you're struggling to get developers, why waste the money on reinventing the wheel or solving self product, right? Something I solved, I started again, if you're a publisher or a tech company, and you can't find developers, it's very, very difficult to keep them and why waste them on solving a solve problem reinventing a wheel. What you do is you kind of use an API and move on from there. Yeah, and you do another agent business and you should do here.

Alexander Sarlin: 34:22

And I'm gonna give one more shout out to learnosity. For that you mentioned accessibility and learnosity has accessibility built into it their accessibility modes where you can add accessible WCAG standards directly to the learnosity platform, which is really exciting. Gavin Cooney, it's really been an honor. It's really a fascinating product. And I'm glad you're getting the scale you deserve. Thank you so much.

Gavin Cooney: 34:42

Thank you. Hi, everyone. It's

Ben Kornell: 34:45

been an Alex with at Tech insiders at ASU GSB. And we have a postcard from a good friend and incredible entrepreneur Maria Barbera from playful and she's also competing tonight as a finalist in the ASU GSB Be innovator competition. Welcome to podcast.

Maria Berrera: 35:03

Thank you so much for having me really excited to be here.

Ben Kornell: 35:05

Great. Well, our first question is, what do you do? Great question.

Maria Berrera: 35:09

So playful offers mental health coaching to kids. Our goal is to democratize access to mental health care. And we realized that through the pandemic, kids have been struggling, we've all been struggling. Specifically, I have had it difficult. So we started playful about four months ago, to really bring together non clinical approaches or preventative approaches to mental health, and to partner with schools in order to make sure every kid can have access to the money that they need, without having family such before.

Alexander Sarlin: 35:42

When you say preventative approaches to mental health, that's a really intriguing phrase, what does that let's unpack that? Yeah.

Maria Berrera: 35:47

So as I was trying to figure out, okay, we know there's a big problem, where's our opportunities, Where are areas where we can have impact, I realize and talking to clinical psychologists, therapists, that by the time a kid gets to them, because there's still so much stigma around mental health, and it's difficult for families to realize that kids need help, it's difficult for you know, only kids who are sort of raising their hand by acting out in classroom or grades are dropping, it's, those are the ones who get support, because there's some like external trigger. But there's a lot of kids suffering in silence. And by the time by the time a kid gets to a therapist, there's a lot that has to be done. So one of the quotes that always sticks with me is anything that you can do on the preventative side and have 10x the impact. So we started looking at, okay, what are other ways now we have great SEL curriculum? What are ways that we can sort of close the gap between SEL curriculum one and being hyper generalized and sometimes not applicable to our kids are going through to a kid meeting once or twice a week with a counselor where what happens in the middle? Historically, a lot of teachers are filling that gap, right. And, and they teachers have been leaving the profession left and right. And a lot of them get burned out because of that emotional baggage that comes with being that support. We're seeing educators leave the field left, like now I had unprecedented rates. So we're really trying to be an extension of schools team so that they don't have to have that burden and provide that access to between those two paths, so that every kid can have access to someone, but it's not a burden on this whole system.

Ben Kornell: 37:25

How is ASU GSB been for you? Given that I kind of feel like the big themes are early childhood, high dosage, tutoring, right and mental health? And not only like, what's it been like in the mental health group, but also, you're in the competition, you're a finalist for the GSB cup? Like, what has the experience been like? Well, it's

Maria Berrera: 37:47

been incredible. For one, like, I haven't seen this many people in a very long time. So that it feels like a reunion of sorts. And that's been really, really fun. We did a panel yesterday, actually, with other companies in the mental health space. And the highlight of that was we had Jose, an 11 year old kid come in and speak to his experience initially. And he just gave this incredible articulate speech about how he felt during the pandemic and the struggles that he went through and the struggles the his friends are going through. And it just really grounded all the work that we're doing in a very meaningful way. Because the reality is that a lot of these topics are talking about like, some of them have been around for a while where like I had a tutoring company growing up like now tutoring sitting over. Mental health is really just becoming the thing that people are talking about, because the pandemic has sort of blown the lid off. But it was it's been an issue for a long time. So it is really, really exciting to have it be one of the main topics that we're now discussing. We talked about yesterday how it was not a panel that would have happened three years ago, right. This was now the the administration is talking about it, the US Surgeon General was here talking about it, right. So it is so incredibly exciting to be part of that inflection point. And it's also really fun to be able to pitch our company, right. And to get that exposure. Like I feel so grateful for ASU GSB to give us this platform that we can really tell district leaders what we're talking about tell investors what we're talking about show investors that this is a space worth investing in, because there is impact and there's money to be made. So for me, it's just been an incredible experience. And I'm really excited tonight to pitch and hopefully win first.

Alexander Sarlin: 39:27

Yeah. So you mentioned the surgeon general who had given a warning a public warning about mental health in schools like National sort of sounded the alarm a while back. There's also a this Esser funding this sort of recovery aid funding, some of which is earmarked for mental health. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about you know, just double click on what you just said about the country. The federal government in the US is really taking mental health care in schools very seriously. And what does that mean for your company for others in the space?

Maria Berrera: 39:55

Yeah, I mean, I started this about four months ago. I I quit my job, June 2021. So a little bit over seven months ago. And it was really because I saw I was working in the HR technology space actually, and saw this rise in companies focus on adult mental health and how employee engagement and mental health in the workplace had become such a big thing. And companies were spending big dollars on helping their employees sort of weather through the pandemic. But I didn't see much for kids. And in my head, like, well, having worked at Nearpod, before and knowing the importance of this time for childhood development, and just like socially, like how kids interact with each other, and going to school and having a structure like, all those pieces are such a big part of how a kid grows and develops, I was thinking to myself, well, you know, we're going to start seeing the effects of this in a while. So like, we should start looking at this and started sort of doing some research, or an article in The New York Times about the rising suicide rates and eight year olds, and that moment, I cried a lot, and then quit my job, because I realized, no, the time is now. And we need to start working on this. So that's when I started thinking about it. And at that point, there was no conversation about schools and mental health coming together that has really come kind of come to fruition in the last three or four months. And it's really like in my head, I'm like, Well, I've worked in schools before. So I understand what that system looks like, how do we build for kids build something that kids really want to use, that helps teachers and educators and that districts gonna pay for are they trying to align those incentives to me is really, really important. That's what we're aiming to do with with playful, but at the core, it really became an act as an equity issue, right, I realized that there's a lot of great companies that are sort of using technology to decrease the barriers to access to mental health through teletherapy. And, and sort of like applications where you can do check ins and everything. And I think that's great. But the direct to consumer model is inherently inequitable, right. And I started thinking about, okay, what are other systems who care about sooner mental health, and schools came back, right. Having been in that space, I realized, well, we launched SEL products. In our professional development work, we did a lot of SEL training. And I realized that Oh, mental health is actually a big influenza and kids grades kits attendance record, and just how districts get funding, behavioral issues. Learning Time, like all of this is a true burnout, teacher burnout, of course. So all these pieces came together to go school should care about this. So how do we build something so schools can provide access to it and do that in a way so that families don't have to pay for it and and that way, every kid can have access, regardless of their family socioeconomic status,

Ben Kornell: 42:37

some of the data that you cited for some people there, it's a call to action. For some people, they just feel overwhelmed. What's giving you optimism, like what's getting you excited about possibility? And what's one of the biggest challenges that you're facing as an entrepreneur tackling this huge issue?

Maria Berrera: 42:54

Yeah, I mean, every conversation that we have with the kid keeps me excited, because I see just how little things become big things over time, or like every little interaction, there's so much research that cites that suicide prevention can be as as simple as having someone to talk to as having someone say hi to you that they like, Okay, well, I guess it's not the day, right. And like, all those little things matter. And so you know, it doesn't need to be a huge super tech 70 Like really intense solution. It's just, it's good boils down to human connection, a lot of what Zack was saying, as well. So that gets me really excited, because it's like, we can take those core principles that make us human, and just use technology to increase access and make that even more powerful. The challenge is, there's still a stigma around mental health, right. And different cultures have different stigmas around getting support. And what we aim to do is really decrease those that stigma and making it so that, hey, everyone needs someone to talk to I need someone to talk to this morning is like, I need to present a lot of us in front of a lot of people, I need someone. So it's not a sign of weakness. It's not a sign for concern, like you just meeting someone is normal, and it's human. And it's okay. And that is one of the core tenants of what we're trying to build. And this movement that we're trying to sort of insight here is that a lot of I think, like you see some mobiles really did a really amazing job doing that a couple of months ago. So there's, we're just at the forefront of that. But there's, it's still a big challenge, and we have a lot to work with.

Ben Kornell: 44:32

Well, it's so inspiring to talk to you and hear your passion about this topic. For those who are at home the GSB cup, it's like three minutes of intensity where you're pitching your company. The winner gets funding but also like a lot of publicity to make it to the finals. I mean, 1000s of companies would love to be on that stage. So congratulations to you on that. Good luck tonight and our listeners listen to this. They'll know the outcome. So, we are like, fingers crossed for you and cheering you on. Thanks so much for joining us.

Maria Berrera: 45:05

I've been told that like you just got to manifest it. So thank you for voting us firstly

Ben Kornell: 45:17

Hi everyone, it's been Cornell from ASU GSB here with Ed Tech insiders, five good minutes, postcards from ASU GSB. We'll get the title shortens here with Whishaw, who is the founder and CEO of two sigma. And I've known Michelle for quite some time. And this was really just an idea. And now you're out with schools and learners, teaching them computer science, but love for you to tell a little bit for the audience. What do you do? And thank you so much for having me, it's

Vishal Goenka: 45:46

been a pleasure to know you, and really get inspiration in terms of what problems what are some of the big problems we need to solve. So what I do at two sigma school is to bring personalized education and technology to students who are in high schools and above. So what we really do is bring students closer to technology by giving them access to computer science and higher level, advanced computer science education. At us at a time when computer science education is really important for every student, then I heard this from someone that computer science in the 21st century, is what physics was in the 20th. And yet, here we are, less than 9% of our students are graduating high school learning computer science, having any understanding of how computers really work. Imagine the future the careers and the future opportunities that will be open to these children's,

Ben Kornell: 46:46

is it a lack of teachers? Or is it a lack of interest? Or what do you think, is driving the lack of access to computer science education,

Vishal Goenka: 46:54

there are two main factors that I have found that is driving the lack of computer science education in the country. The first one is incentives. And generally for our schools. The core subjects do not include computer science, schools performance, and the scorecard that it is measured on is based on literacy in core subjects, and computer science, just it's not one of them. And as a result, the priorities from the schools are very different. The second one is, as you mentioned, that the lack of teachers, any teacher who can teach advanced computer science to high schoolers, has other options than teaching just from a socio economic perspective. And that just creates challenges in hiring and retaining teachers.

Ben Kornell: 47:40

My understanding that two sigma is you do live instruction, how do you source your computer science staff? And, you know, and have you have you thought about this live versus asynchronous, which so many people are struggling

Vishal Goenka: 47:54

with? Absolutely. And one of the things we have realized man is, and this is we're not the first ones to realize this, that technology enables people from all over the place to be able to connect with each other without necessarily being in the same location. So another way of saying this is education has become global rather than local. All this used to be that you were confined to the supply of teachers, you could find within a five or 10 mile radius. But with distance learning and remote education, that is no longer the case. That by itself unlocks supply in ways that was just not possible in a traditional school. The other factor is that there are a lot of other people who are just not willing to do a full time teacher job, but have passion for teaching and have the background. And so bringing them in sort of like a marketplace model where if you wanted to teach if you're passionate about teaching computer science, and you just had one hour a day, we could tap in and bring you into the platform and connect you with students who could benefit from that, as opposed to, you know, recruiting you for a full time teachers position, which would be extremely hard.

Alexander Sarlin: 49:04

So one trends that we've seen recently is, as you say, practitioners, who in the past, if they wanted to give back to the community may have written articles or written a book or showing up at a community college or starting to teach online and be able to reach the entire world. I'd love to hear a little bit about when you talk to these teachers, what is their core motivation for wanting to teach alongside their full time jobs,

Vishal Goenka: 49:27

it is really their desire to give back the connection with students the ability to make a difference in the lives of real people. It's really meaningful for many of these professionals to find the time to to connect with students and make a real difference in their lives. And just you know, the joy of seeing that seeing that difference that made in the in the lives of students is really the key driver. So here at ASU, GSB. There's a lot about what's going on in education but also the future What gets you most excited as you walk around and as you think about also the work you're doing, I think we got a promethium moment in education. It's like the perfect storm, where that's been created by just access to technology, which was accelerated because of COVID. And it has also opened the minds and hearts of people in understanding what is really possible with technology. And I think that's what's most exciting. We're no longer bound by the traditional view of education. And, you know, technology has just enabled a lot of traditional thinkers and traditional educators, just seeing what is possible because they have to make that happen for themselves during the pandemic. And that has just opened up willingness.

Alexander Sarlin: 50:48

I love that answer. And I really agree, I think the expansion of the possibilities of what education could be have accelerated more in the last couple of years, and I think we've seen in decades, and it is really exciting time. So the follow up question is what keeps you up at night? What is sort of the biggest challenge that you see, when you look at the future of two sigma,

Vishal Goenka: 51:08

the biggest challenge for us is really realizing our North Star goal. And that is to provide a two sigma, better quality education. And let me connect it back to our name, that two sigma name comes from this paper that was written in 84. by Benjamin Bloom, that said, people who get one on one tutoring perform two standard deviations better than students who learn in a conventional classroom. And that difference really means that these students are in the 98th percentile. So that's our North Star goal. That's our vision and aspiration. And so what keeps me up at night is that it's not a technology problem. We can't build the coolest tech to make it possible. It's a people problem. And technology is an enabler. And while we're making great strides in how we have trained our teachers, what curriculum we're using flipped classrooms, active learning, mastery based, we're using a lot of these high tested learning science based approaches, yet, there is a gap, there is a gap with the diversity of students, diversity of teachers, how do we get to that two sigma difference is still still a challenge. It's not solved for me.

Ben Kornell: 52:14

Incredible. Thanks so much, Michelle. And just great to hear about where the two sigma comes from. I know so many of our listeners will resonate with that. Great to have you here, Vishal. Check out two sigma school. If you've got a high schooler and you want to have computer science at their high school, reach out to him. And thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today.

Vishal Goenka: 52:35

Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure to meet you.

Ben Kornell: 52:39

Hi, everyone. It's Ben Cornell with Ed Tech insiders at ASU GSB. With another postcard we have Dr. Guy here. Shapira, excellent physician, that employee of learning technologies. We're so excited to hear about your company. And also just your experience. First question, what do you do?

Yair Shapira: 52:57

Yes, so I'm Pro provides a learning platform for the world of education, especially education is a very broad spectrum, right? It's about 20% of the kids between IPs in schools and five or four, which covers which I was pathology and disabilities and autism, attention deficit and many others, and the kids in special education and receive services from personnel that are professionals in the field. Unfortunately, it is a huge difference between what's happening in private practice. And what's happening in schools was kids move very fast in private practice something in schools, the media moves very slow. And that's frustrating for parents like me, I'm a father of a child who stutters. And I want to get kids out of therapy, right?

Ben Kornell: 53:40

Yeah. Tell us a little bit about your founding journey. So you're a doctor, you're in biomedical sciences. How did you end up here and a little bit of that personal connection to so

Yair Shapira: 53:49

I'll tell you a short story, right? It's a middle school family in engineering. I spent about 20 years in, in high tech international high tech, my son started from his first walk. And one evening, I sat by my mother's table and my son, he started severe, you know, comes and goes. And he had bed staring day, right and just left the table. And my mom said to me into my wife, surely you both have PhDs in Biomedical Engineering, can you fix something is throat to fix this startup? And it took not more than 20 milliseconds on a Saturday to leave my job and start a company that deals with the first and the millions of others.

Ben Kornell: 54:29

And how's the journey gone? From founding to today? Where is where's

Yair Shapira: 54:33

the company? Yes. So we've developed a platform we started with stuttering. We extended it to speech language, we expanded it to dyslexia, and we entered the US K 12. Market in August 2019. Just before the pandemic within months, we started reaching the school districts. And within here we've reached 10s of 1000s of education kids were selected by states at the Texas Education Agency to provide Have a platform for all kids in Texas who suffer from dyslexia. I'm not sure you know, but dyslexic kids have a life expectancy that is significantly shorter than the average person, about 80% of the people increases, have reading disabilities and dyslexia. And if you can change this, in the past, you can really impact lives. Those numbers

Alexander Sarlin: 55:22

are amazing. I did not know any of those. That's incredible. We wanted to hear about the Israeli tech scene a little bit because it is burgeoning. And I'm noticing there's a lot of really fascinating Israeli tech founders here, many of whom are now going global, like you are coming to the US and starting to work in schools. What has it been like seeing the rise in edtech, specifically within Israel?

Yair Shapira: 55:45

So you're moving to Israel as the startup nation, right? Yes. more high tech companies than probably any other area in the world. And tech is fairly new to Israel. And the reason is that every company that I've been in other high tech companies in Israel, every company is well looks at the international market, because we never have a local market is too small. But ethic is very local. And because a local business school in Nebraska hires local teachers, local nurses, and so on. Even the language this the social a part of, of education, which isn't a great part is very local. And the first thing when I started looking at the US cable market, I was told, guys, you are not from here. If you want to sell in Florida, you have to be Florida. And you're not only to North Florida, multiple American. Well, it turns out that if you have an impactful solution, it opens many doors. We also have an amazing group of members here in the US and unbelievable color of advisory council, people like the president of the American Speech Language Hearing Association, the former executive director of the Council of Ministers of special education, leading professors in the industry, developers of dyslexia curricula are members of advisory council, and they definitely helping and working with the school districts and state agencies.

Ben Kornell: 57:08

So at the conference is both about what's going on in edtech. Today, but also the future of edtech. What's getting you most excited

Yair Shapira: 57:16

if these have been in August, just during the pandemic. And before things have dramatically changed in the last couple of years, in general education, general education is moved from being a traditional area to being a very advanced technological place. And the thing that companies are emerging all the time, this has not found its way to special education, right. But there is a reason for that. General Education deals with the majority of the kids that are in the center of the backyard, right, and the sooner that they move in cohorts in classroom curricula assessment. And so when you go to the edges of the circle, every child is indeed different. And the assumption that the wicking was the only solution for this long tail is to bring a highly professional pathologist or intervention into a patient therapist or psychologist, and think the entire building of the each and every child on the shoulders. But things can be structured things can be measured, just like it was in the gen ed in a very different way with the technologies.

Ben Kornell: 58:18

All right. Last question, what is the biggest challenge we face?

Yair Shapira: 58:21

The biggest challenge is always tradition, right? Education is a traditional business. It has been delivered in the same way for decades, especially education is even more traditional, but insightful changing. Legislation is in place now. Budgets are in place, educators are frustrated as much as I am with the sometimes compromise the outcomes of the kids, they want to be empowered, the special educators want to be a part of general education, they want to take place in the entire to impact the entire education system. So they already but those electrification to educate those that needs to take place.

Ben Kornell: 58:58

Wonderful. Thanks so much for joining us today. It's been great to be at ASU GSB to see the sheer number of entrepreneurs from Israel, but also this focus on Special Education raising the needs of all learners. It's finally becoming a central topic in the conversation. Thanks so much. Thanks so much. Hi, everyone, it's Ben Cornell from ASU GSB. And I'm here with Alex and Ed Tech and senators postcards from ASU GSB. And we're excited to welcome yaki and I don't even really know what title to refer you to as I call you, the godfather of edtech in Israel, but I also know you are wearing a CEO hat, what's your preferred nomenclature?

Yaki Dayan: 59:38

My name is equity and I prefer to be recognized as someone who's a social entrepreneur. Educational started seven years ago, especially but seven. I didn't even know that there is such a thing called Social Impact startup until someone said that I was actually a big fan of but you know, the vision was very clear to turn startup nation to a technician and was very, very upset by the fact that there were more startups in education closely spaced in other countries than the IDs. And so initially, I felt that we were missing the potential. So fast forward seven years. And here it is, which is we with five amazing companies, it's already the fifth time the meaning and easily delegation to this prestigious event. So definitely a lot of change over the last seven years. So people ask me, how do you actually create a word ecosystem? I don't think they have a like, very good answer to that. Because every ecosystem different, I knew for sure that for the Israeli echo system, what was missing was the exposure to international opportunities. And I have a lot of international sales and marketing background. So for me, it was very natural to the first thing that I did when I opened education was to hop on a plane and fly to California, and which was EdSurge, when they were just, you know, operating out of a very small office and going to the Zynga accelerator in California, everywhere he was going to this and I will present this yet to community, although I didn't know even if there is. I think that today, I really make it, you know, many reasons to know about each and every intrapreneur knowledge, but what brought them over there and who they're doing and to try to care for the opportunities such as

Ben Kornell: 1:01:28

Bill Gates has a great quote, which is never overestimate what you can accomplish in one year and never underestimate what you can accomplish in 10. Seven years, you're already well ahead. You know, one thing that I think our listeners would find really interesting is originally a tech Israel was a for profit, we've pivoted to a nonprofit, really thinking about the broader social good. Can you tell us a little bit about that decision, and then also, how that's enabled you to amplify the voices of edtech entrepreneurs like amplio. And like a noto, who've been on the show,

Yaki Dayan: 1:02:04

you know, when we started, there was a big question, Should we be a for profit or nonprofit?And we alway say we, it's myself and a lot of other people that care for this community. And they've advised me, he said, If we will say that we are not perfect, and we are trying to make all the other comers profitable, then you know, it doesn't really make sense. So let's try to make a tech is, by itself, a profitable company. However, it was always getting assigned a certain kind of dilemma, let's say, well, to connect you to one of the entrepreneurs, should they do it just like that, or should they first asked you to sign the finder's fee agreement. And it was always this tension about what they do Holborn and what they do for profit. And along the line, we realized that this tension was not working for us. So they try to cling to this concept of being a for profit and try to make educational profitable, but did not make sense. We actually tried to turn into nonprofit in January 2020. But then, you know, some pandemic can eventually get the final approval, even later in January particular demand. And we would have WTI assembled also a group of eight dedicated stos from the Visalia tech community to access an advisory board. And we are now looking at what is important for the ecosystem on today's to the top post pandemic, because the cheese moves, and things change. So definitely, there are things that we need to do better. This is exactly what the software says that we are doing right now.

Alexander Sarlin: 1:03:44

So one of the things that I've noticed about the Israeli and tech ecosystem is that it often brings in very advanced proprietary technology into ad tech. So companies like Joy tunes or a sense AI, or a lot of them have really some very high tech components inside a tech products. I'm curious if you think that is one of the advantages of the Israeli system, that it's sort of a place that is always looking for cutting edge technology and its use cases.

Yaki Dayan: 1:04:12

So this is happening because this is exactly where we wanted this to happen. It was not like this, like 567 years ago. And we just finished the panel here, there's just Yes, we it was so impressive to look at the different rep CEOs. And think how mature the views are on the whole technology can actually play and meet sometimes a lot of Intrapreneurs that are coming here are so excited about very niche, AI based education and they believe they can change the world. It's it's not, I mean, you need to adopt a much more serious and much more mature approach to that. And the thing that wasn't that the pandemic has caused too many of us is to be much more humble and less bombastic with all the say predictions that we say about the software and be much more realistic about it. What we actually solve for the educators and for the students, and I think this is something which is reflected by most of the companies that I'm familiar with something which amazes me is that during the two years of pandemic, the number of Israeli unicorns almost tripled. We have about 70 unicorns to date in Israel, which is an amazing, one of the side effect of that is that it's creating a lot of business opportunities for economic companies, because now they can sell into those unicorns that the companies without actually needing to go to, to the states. And if you want to set to monday.com weeks, five minute, whatever, you just need to close on the scooter for one second.

Alexander Sarlin: 1:05:43

So there's a whole b2b market that has been created in the last couple of years that ad tech companies can serve. It is

Yaki Dayan: 1:05:50

also a large pool of talent, a large pool of opportunities, you know that one of the things that we maybe don't speak enough about the results of the pandemic kinetic industry, is that it's actually killed a lot of the international opportunities that happened, and not speaking about us to us as sick about Israel to India, Israel, to Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan to Afghan I mean, all those kinds of global opportunities that used to be much more thriving before the pandemic and now effectively working because how can you do a project from Israel into India, she cannot actually fly to India. This is now changing. One thing that I always try to say direct is an intrapreneur is not necessarily to go to the immediate market, which is the United States. And one thing which I really love about the SU GSB is the global community that happens that arise over here. People that you meet from a Kenya from India, from Colombia, and Somalia is so many other places. And this is really creating, like a good network of opportunities.

Alexander Sarlin: 1:06:58

I really agree. It's been amazing how much Ad Tech has gone global and the the investment and the number of companies has exploded. It used to be people look at us, India, China. That's it. And now incredible ideas coming out from all over the world.

Ben Kornell: 1:07:12

Well, yaki that's our five minutes. It's far too short. I would encourage anyone who's listening to the show, to reach out learn more about tech Israel. One of the things that I also love bow Yeah, he is it's he is the most ardent supporter of the entire space, whether it's Israeli or whether it's just our head tech industry. So it's an honor and a pleasure to have you here with us today. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Alexander Sarlin: 1:07:39

Thanks for listening to the first part of our ASU GSV postcards. We focused on a lot of K 12 and PK 12 companies from amazing entrepreneurs at the ASU GSB conference. In the next episode, we'll look at higher ed and workforce development entrepreneurs